Enhanced Heat Transfer Coefficient (HTC) Method to Model Air Quench Process: Investigation of HTC Characteristics by CFD Methods

Air quenching is a common manufacturing process to produce high strength metal component by rapidly cooling heated parts in a short period of time. With the advancement of finite element analysis (FEA) methods, it has been possible to predict thermal residual stress by computer simulation. However, the accuracy of FEA calculation is bounded by the accuracy of the temperature data, acquired either by thermocouple measurement, experimentally calibrated heat transfer coefficient (HTC) method, or computational fluid dynamics (CFD) calculation. While CFD methods have gained popularity, the practicality of CFD method is reduced by tedious mesh generation and costly computation that is only feasible to be performed on a supercomputer. When quenching media is a gas-phased fluid and quenching flow is steady, the flow and temperature fields exhibit certain characteristics that could lead to the development of enhanced HTC method that is more computation efficient and yet produces more accurate temperature data.